


FIRSTFALL

by Mikkeneko



Series: Anders Goes to Orzammar [3]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grave visiting, Post-Kirkwall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 14:51:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13953924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkeneko/pseuds/Mikkeneko
Summary: Hawke returns to Ferelden, seeking the site of his brother's grave.





	FIRSTFALL

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written as a companion piece to One Elegant Solution in the 'Anders Goes to Orzammar' verse. Since Hawke has recently shown up in OES, I needed to take some time to figure where he's been all this time, where his own journey has taken him and where his head is at now. However, it can also be read independently of the other stories.
> 
> This takes place in the winter of the first year after the Kirkwall explosion. Firstfall approximately = November.

Firstfall in Ferelden was a dreary prospect, the tail end of autumn right before winter really kicked in. Winter came slowly to the jagged, rocky hills behind the bannorn, but when it arrived it did so with the weight of a falling mountain, and no sane traveler would want to be out in it.

Hawke was as well-equipped for such a journey as anyone could hope to be: his clothes were warm, double-quilted to retain heat even when wet, with ruffs of fur lining the cuffs to protect hands and face and feet. His hands were gloved inside broad mittens to keep out the biting cold, his boots tough and well-nailed, a sturdy stick in hand and his war knives at his hip.

He was as well prepared as any one man could be. But he was still only one man, and winter was closing tight. It was cold in the day, colder at night, cold in his bedroll alone and cold with his war knives always on his hip or in his hand. It was hard, to be in the wilderness when winter came knocking, and Hawke couldn't help but wonder how all the mages were faring in their new freedom.

It was hard to say when the barren emptiness of the woods in winter gave way to the deeper barrenness of old Blight; the trees went from stark, bare-branched to sagging and crazy-tilted old stumps lifting half out of the ground. No green to be found, and no birds sang ten miles in any direction. Only bare grey and brown rocks, lumpy and uneven along the ridge.

There was ice clinging to most of the shady surfaces -- Hawke had encountered plenty of it on this hike -- but the first snowfall of the season hadn't really hit yet. In Ferelden in winter, once the snow started it never really let up until spring, and the peculiar purple-grey color of the clouds overhead and the heavy way they hung in the sky warned Hawke he didn't have much more time.

He stopped, squinting at the horizon in the dull light and comparing the angle of the shadows to his memories. He'd walked this track only once before. Well, _ran_   this track, really; more of a brisk jog, that being the best pace that Bethany and Mother could keep. They'd fled this way from Lothering as it burned behind them, fled from the blight and the Darkspawn horde creeping on all sides… surrounded and cut off, in the end, facing a pack of the monsters headed by an ogre. Here they'd made a stand, here they'd fought, flashing knives and blazing magic and the silver glint of sword and shield. Here they'd fought, and lost.

Here his brother died.

Or… somewhere near here, anyway.

He was in the right area, he was sure of it. But memory was an uncertain guide, and the landscape had changed in the seven years since he'd been this way. He couldn't be sure whether it was this waterless track they'd scrambled down, or was it another? Which ring of hills around a dry plateau, down the slopes of which the darkspawn poured? This one, maybe? Or maybe this?

Which of these piles of featureless rocks hid his brother's body?

He crested the top of another ridge, surveyed the clearing ahead of him… and let out a groan of frustration. He'd thought this was the right place, it had _looked_   familiar… but now everything looked wrong, different. He'd made a wrong turn -- or maybe this wasn't the right place after all. Or maybe the years had caused a rockfall, reshaped the landscape.

With a huff, Hawke took a seat on the lumpy rocks at the top of the ridge and unslung his pack. The inner pocket yielded some field rations that were not frozen; bread and fish jerky. He chewed on them, rather resentfully, as he glared up at the snow-heavy sky.

He'd waited too long to come here. Too blighted long, and he kicked himself with every step and scramble he took. Okay, for the beginning it was understandable -- getting to Kirkwall took everything they had, and when they were scrambling for money to survive there was nothing to spare to make trips, even once they got the word that the Blight was over.

But after… after then, there'd been time, there'd been money. He'd left Kirkwall now and again -- to track down the root of the trouble with the Carta, even just to attend an Orlesian party, for the Maker's sake. There'd been _time,_   but he hadn't taken the time. Why? Because he'd wanted Bethany and Mother to come with him when he went, and they couldn't or wouldn't go? Or just because they'd all felt that there was nothing to go back to in Ferelden?

With a sigh, he finished his unappetizing meal, tossing the last few pieces of bread-end and the tough gristle of the jerky aside. Getting to his feet he re-slung his pack and walked along towards the high point of the hill. Maybe a better view of the countryside would get him his bearings.

A flash of movement out of the corner of his eye arrested his attention, a scraping on the rocks behind. He didn't expect bandits -- bandits didn't go where there were no people to rob, after all -- but even this late in the season there were animals. Bears -- rural Ferelden always had problems with bears -- or wolves, or…

Instead he saw a familiar-looking canine shape further back on his trail, snuffling at the scraps of food he'd tossed aside. A wolf? No, it _was_   a dog, a mabari! "Hey there!" Hawke called out, more startled than angry to see a stray dog nosing around his leavings. He started back down the hill, hand extended.

The dog glanced up at him, then redoubled its hasty scrounging efforts; it retreated backwards even as it slurped the last of the fish jerky into its mouth, creeping backwards on all fours. "It's all right," Hawke called out, making his voice sound more friendly this time. "I can spare a few pieces of fish. Come here, boy!"

It declined to come there. With another glance up at him the dog slunk away, body low to the ground as it ran down the rocky slope and disappeared into the defile.

Hawke had no intention of letting slide the opportunity to pet a dog way out here in the Ferelden wilderness. He started after the dog, scrambling down the rocky hillside and ducking among the twists and turns of the canyons. "I'm not gonna hurtcha!" he called out. "I've got more fish. You like fish?"

It did not seem to like fish, or at least didn't trust the offer, because even as he followed after the dog it remained out of his reach. And yet it didn't seem in a hurry to escape him, either, occasionally stopping to see if he was still following before it made another turn.

He wondered how it had come to be out here; they were miles away from any remaining settlements. It looked awful, fur dirty and matted, ribs showing against its sides. Hawke couldn't just let it go back to trying to fend for itself in this bleak, blighted landscape with winter coming on. "Come back here, blight it!"

He lost sight of it at the end of a canyon -- well, there was only one place it could have gone. Hawke dropped over the lip of one last rocky edge, and stopped short.

The clearing in front of him, a flattened basin with a ring of rocks around, threw itself into sharp relief, casting shadows seven years back in his mind. Dog momentarily forgotten, Hawke turned about until he found the right direction and then nearly ran towards it. There it was, there it was, the trench under the overhanging wall, still with the mound of loose rocks piled over it. There, at the foot of his brother's grave, stood the dog. It looked right at him one more time, then turned and trotted away behind the rocks.

"Well," Hawke said, more an explosion of breath that plumed in the air than a real word. "Well! Thank you, mysterious dog. How did you know I was looking for this place? How did you even know where this place was? I wonder…"

His voice died away before he continued the speculation. It was probably just a coincidence. His whole life was like that, just an incredible series of improbable coincidences.

Hawke set to work. He'd had time to think, on the way in here, of what he was going to do when he found the grave. Neaten it up, square away the edges so that it was more visibly a cairn and not just a pile. Clear away the dirt and debris that had piled up over it through the years, scrape clean the stones. Put up a proper marker. He hadn't been able to lug a heavy marker stone with him, but the Maker had put plenty of stones around here that would do just fine.

It was hard work with just his hands, painful in the bitter cold, but it eased something in him as well. When at last the grave was done proper, he hunted until he found a flat, pale stone of the right size. Pulled out the little chisel set he'd gotten as a Satinalia gift from Varric years ago and chipped into a symmetric shape, then chiseled the Amell family crest into the surface. A little more digging and prying of stones and he had the headstone set up, a little rough, but recognizable.

When all that was done Hawke sat back on his heels and caught his breath, blowing plumes and clouds in the freezing air. The grave looked better now, but there was still an expectant air. There was still so much that had never been said between them.

"Well, little brother... here I am," Hawke said aloud. He cleared his throat, voice unused in days except to call out to the stray dog. "Sorry it took so long to get back to you, it... it wasn't that we didn't care, it's just... always one thing and another. First there were the darkspawn, and the dragon, and the running and the sailing and the year's worth of debt and the expedition and then the problems with the Qunari and the Arishok and then Meredith and then... well, everything.

"I couldn't really get away until now, I guess, and now... well..." He trailed off. "I guess I've got all the time in the world, now. I'm certainly not going back to Kirkwall." He couldn't help a grimace as he thought of that Blighted city, sitting like a diseased and malignant demon on the top of the legacy of thousands of years of brutality and suffering. He'd burned his bridges there, good and proper. He could never go back. He didn't really think he wanted to.

"Bethany's well," Hawke said, making an effort to turn to happier things. "I think she could stand to be a little less well, honestly, gadding about with Isabela all around the Waking Sea. Mother... well, I guess I don't need to tell you about mother. Either the two of you are together at the Maker's side, in which case she's no doubt told you all about it, or else... I'd like to think you are. Father, too."

This 'happier things' idea wasn't going to well.

"Bethany wouldn't come with me," Hawke confessed to the silent stone. "To see you, I mean. She said your gravestone will always be written on her heart, so she doesn't need there to be one in real life. Awfully morbid, don't you think? I don't know where my baby sister picks up this stuff. But she got awfully strange and quiet, after she went to the Circle.

"I don't know quite how to feel about it," Hawke admitted. "I wish she'd come, to say goodbye to you. But at the same time I'm glad she didn't come. It's wrong for me to want some space from her, isn't it, after we were separated for so many years by the Circle? And we're all that's left now, so us Hawkes, we should stick together. But she..."

He trailed off into silence for a long moment, rubbing his hands across the tops of his thighs. His legs were protesting the awkward position, kneeling on cold stone in the cold air, and he shifted in a vain attempt to ease the pain.

"I did it all for her, you know." His voice was soft, quieter than the icy wind that scoured the stones. "All the fighting, all the traveling and struggling, all to make it safe for her. And I couldn't keep her safe from the Circle, and... and I couldn't get her out again after, either. It took someone else to break down the Circle walls and get her out, and I was so scared that he'd break her in the process, I..."

He shut his eyes, as though that could shut out the pain. He was such a mess, his head and heart were in such a mess over Anders. So full of anger and grief, regret and longing. If only he could turn back time, do things over -- maybe he could have stopped him, maybe he could have changed things. Or then again, maybe not. Anders had been so determined, so steeled on his course. Hawke had always envied that conviction. The protectiveness that Hawke felt towards Bethany was a fraction of what Anders felt towards his cause.

"I know what you're thinking," he said, opening his eyes again. "that I have a bit of a little sister complex. It's true, I guess, but can you blame me? The last words Father ever said to me were to tell me to take care of Bethany.

"And here we are and there I was with Kirkwall disappearing over the horizon behind us, on Isabela's ship, and Bethy doesn't need me any more. I did it all for her, everything for her, to keep my baby sister safe… and she doesn't need me any more." His voice cracked; tears threatened. "Guess she knows how crap I am at keeping people safe. Couldn't keep Mother safe, after all. Couldn't keep you alive. Couldn't even keep the bloody dog..."

He broke down, the tears and the grief pouring through this weak spot. It had always been his weak spot, the one thing in the world he couldn't keep up the bravado against. Their dog, _his_   dog, the faithful warhound Hogger who had been by his side every step of the long, painful journey; through Blight and sea travel and the year of smuggling and the streets of Kirkwall and the Deep Roads and made it all the way to Hightown, only to succumb to something as simple and inexorable as old age the spring before everything all went to shit.

It was stupid to rail against it; Hogger had been sixteen years old when he died, well above the usual age for a dog his size. In his twilight years he'd been pampered and cosetted by Hawke and Bodahn and Sandal and even Orana, with Anders devoting all his craft towards extending his life. But in the end there was nothing medicine could do, nothing even magic could do to stop the old hound's body from shutting down, one piece at a time.

He'd been in so much pain by the end, Hawke had begged Anders to do the only thing there was left to do: use entropy magics to put him into a deep and painless sleep, and then… deeper.

Hawke had cried that night, clutching at the dog's cooling fur as the tears dripped down on it, cried like he hadn't been able to do even for Mother's death, for all the shock and horror that had plugged him like a dam. Anders had held him long into the night, offering soft murmurs and comfort, and never judged him for being able to grieve more for the loss of a pet than for his own mother. Anders understood. He had always understood.

And he cried now, tears that ran down his cheeks and froze in his beard, snowflakes by the time they fell to the stones below. But there was no one now to hold him, or comfort him, or share his grief. If there was anyone who would, he'd left them all behind or driven them away, broken everything that had ever been put in his hands for safekeeping.

Everything behind him was gone, burnt up and bled out and broken. Gone.

"What am I going to do now?" Hawke finally said, dashing the tears aside as he sat up the address the headstone. "For the first time in my _life_ I'm free to go anywhere, do anything I want in the world and I've no idea what to do with any of it."

He quieted, gradually, the storm of grief playing itself out. His nose hurt, throbbing in the cold air; he brought out a square of fabric to dry his face before the frost could solidify on it. He hurt, but it was softer now.

"What would you have done, Carver?" he said quietly. "What would you have done with your life if you'd gotten the chance?  You wouldn't have been content to spend all your time cleaning up other people's messes. You would have run off to have grand adventures. Joined the gray wardens, maybe. Gone off to Orlais to become a chevalier. I can see you as a chevalier, the mask would be an improvement over your homely face."

The words were spoken with humor, but they dropped like stone on the grave. He and Carver had always had that going for them, insults and ribbing, but Carver couldn't react with outrage or return a snarky insult now. It didn't feel right, making fun of him when he couldn't make fun back.

"I remember when you wanted to leave to join the army. To fight against Orlesian tyranny, you said," he said at length. "Father said no, he said you needed to stay and protect the family. You said a soldier protects everyone, not just family. You were fourteen and a bloody trial, but Carver… I think… I think you were right."

He sat for a while, brooding on old memories of Lothering and even beyond. "There are things you don't realize as a child. Things you don't question about the world," he said. "I realize now there were a lot of things that Father turned a blind eye to, a lot of wrongs he didn't try to right because he couldn't afford to draw attention to us. Not with two apostates in the family.

"It's all most apostates can do to take care of themselves. It was all he could do, to do that and take care of us too. Most mages don't have anything left over to worry about anyone else but themselves…" He hesitated, but the name hovered, inescapable, never far from his thoughts even now. "Except Anders. Anders cared about so many people."

"It's a blighted shame that you and Dad never got the chance to meet Anders. You'd have hated him," he said with a chuckle. "But Dad would have liked him, I think. Well, at least up until the end, and even then…" He frowned. "Even then, I'm not sure. But he's a mage who isn't afraid and isn't ashamed, and he fights for everyone, not just himself. He had a chance at the happiest life an apostate can ever hope for and he lighted it on fire and I… I blew it."

That almost triggered another flood of tears, thinking about that last terrible day in Kirkwall. But he was all cried out now, no salt left.

He took a deep breath. "If there's one silver lining to all these awful thunderheads, there's this: I'm not risking anyone else any more. It's just me. I only have to worry about what's right, without also worrying about whether other people I care about will be hurt in the process."

His voice slowed, firmed as he went on, followed the thought to his conclusion. "Maybe Bethany doesn't need my help any more, but there are so many others like her that _do,_   mages that could well have been my own brother or sister or children. It runs in our family, you know; not just us, but everywhere. Did you know that Aunt Revka had _five_   children, every one of them mages? It makes you wonder, it really does."

He stood up. His legs hurt, but he ignored them. Once he got moving again, they'd warm up.

"This is what I was raised for," he realized with a sense of wonder. "The running and the fighting, the sneaking and the striking. I was raised to the helping of the fathers and sisters who need help more than anyone, and have so few people who care enough to help."

The headstone was silent; there were no voices from beyond, no signs from the heaven to tell him his decision was the right one. What had he expected, really?

Well, it didn't matter.

"Goodbye, little brother," he said, feeling a little foolish as he addressed the stone. "I don't know if I'll be able to come back here. It's a wonderfully uncertain thing, this lifestyle I live. But I hope that you and Mother and Father are well, wherever you are, and that you'd be -- well, if not proud of me, then at least entertained."

He stepped back from the grave, looking around hard and carefully to memorize the region as best he could. He didn't want to be unable to find this place again, if he -- or Bethany -- ever had reason to come back.

As he turned to leave, a low uncertain whine sounded from behind him. He turned to see the dog from before, pale fur darkened with dirt and debris, poised with one foot up as though arrested mid-step.

"Are you coming with me?" he addressed the dog. It took a hesitant step forward, then another, and finally nosed at his hip and whined again.

"Looking for more fish?" He rummaged around in his pack for more supplies, but the dog seemed to want to shove its head in his hand more than it wanted food. He petted its head a few times, and despite the sharp bones and matted fur, something in him felt better.

He paused for a moment, suddenly overcome by a sense of superstitious certainty. The dog had led him to Carver's grave -- and now it wanted to accompany him? What if… he didn't think that he believed in reincarnation or anything so weird. But what if the dog had been _sent_   to him?

Well, then, he supposed it would be rude not to accept.

"Well, come on, Carver," he said to the dog. "I expect you to keep up at least if you can't pull your weight. Don't suppose you're carrying around a few potions, or at least a cask of brandy with you? A spot of brandy would definitely lighten up this abominable weather." 

 

* * *

 

 

~the end.


End file.
